Thursday, September 1, 2011
Text
According to Jerome McGann, a text is an 'embodied phenomenon', presumably fleshed out with meaning and relevant in its context. It's what we might think of as incarnate, in the sense that without intentionality, text is meaningless; without some conscious determination to communicate a message, even something that looks like text (the elephant painting flowers, the birds' feet fossilized in stone) is simply a thing.
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When someone is creating a painting or a piece of literature or whatever it is, it does not need to be created with determination or intentionality to be considered a text. In my opinion, if the painting or piece of literature holds meaning or a significant message to the audience member, then it is considered text. For example, the Stonehenge could be considered a text or it could also be considered meaningless. Thousands of years ago, a group of people could have been extremely bored and the only form of entertainment they could think of was moving massive rocks around to create a really cool yard ornament. If you look at it that way, Stonehenge has no meaning or significance. However, if it was built for the purpose of a solar calendar, then it suddenly has a purpose to convey a message. Either way, it still could have been considered text depending on how the audience member interpreted it.
ReplyDeleteKari Kitchen
A text is a thought, or that which induces such. In my opinion, the picture of the taupe and white carpet on the power point slide in class today was a text. The carpet followed a pattern. If we were to study the pattern of the carpet, we may find a variation, which could imply that the maker of it intended to convey a thought. We could also conclude the maker made an error due to fatigue. Either conveys a finding which encorages thought, therefore a vehicle of communication even if it is self induced. A fellow classmate stated, regarding the imprint of images on the ostrich eggs, that "if the act was done out of boredom", is it still indeed a text. In these regards, we veer away from an aspect of our triad, Intentionality in relation to the creator, and we ourseleves become the producers of a text. A text is a student not responding to this blog. A text is in the eye or the mind's eye of the beholder...A text is subjective to he who percieves it.
ReplyDeleteI understand the general statement on the nature of text, but I have to argue that both the birds' feet and elephant's painting were texts. The rest of the slides (as far as I recall) were manmade acts of artistry and were obviously texts - excluding the smoke signals, which were texts as well but for a separate reason. But I argue the footprints and painting were texts also - not in their original nature, but through their appended context. The birds' feet were not texts, but the act of capturing them in stone, isolating the footprints, and furthermore by displaying them embodied them with intent. And the elephant painting, similarly, was given meaning when it was made apparent that the painting was created through the encouragement of human beings; in a sense, they transformed the elephant into a tool, a conduit for conveying meaning. In this sense, I can perceive of the painting as a text without having to tackle some abstract and difficult argument about the sentient nature of elephants, which is always a convenient caveat to avoid.
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ReplyDeleteForgive my lack of Academese (as a fiction writer I don't necessarily need it or embrace it for myself), but as a self-defined writer/artist I wanted to add my two cents to the thought that something performed or created in boredom, without the intention of creating a message (like 'lawn art') is *still* intention, albeit a lighter intention than, say, a written manifesto. Those bored people creating lawn art are still saying something--they're saying, "I'm bored, so I'm constructing something to relieve that boredom". Even if it's not with the intention of teaching the viewer something, it does still teach, correct, it teaches the viewer that a human being however many years ago communicated that he or she was bored and could find a way to stop feeling bored. We learn not only that human beings years before us could feel bored, just like us, but that they could also use the physical act of creation to alleviate that boredom, just like us.
ReplyDeleteThe only issue is that without some sort of clue leading us to know and understand that the creator was bored, we're only speculating. The same applies to the painting elephants...we can't be sure of the intention, we can't prove it, we can't ask for clarification (as of yet), so we can only speculate. It's still valid, though, and valuable, if the viewer/reader/thinker is impacted in some way, yes?
*Intention* is probably the toughest part to tackle here. When I create a story or character, I don't always have a set intention right off the bat. Sometimes it only becomes clear to me later, maybe years later, and even then, readers often find something different to take away from my story than even I intended, and I end up with a different view. It cycles back and forth between and through us, changing and adapting as it goes. I think that, too, is valuable and valid.
I completely disagree with Jerome McGann. I don't think text is ever simply a "thing". I believe that regardless of the creators intentions, text is always a work of art with some meaning behind it, even if the meaning is unclear to everyone including the creator. I know a lot of people who write, draw, or paint to simply release emotions and frustrations. They have no intended meaning behind it but creating art is an outlet for them to let go. I also believe a lot of great writers started out like that. Writing because it felt right and they just happened to stumble across creating a great poem or novel. With that said, I definitely agree with the first post Kari Kitchen, in saying that text is never simply just a thing.
ReplyDelete@JessPrim, I believe that McGann was offering "thing" as something that is not a text, not implying that a text is "simply a 'thing'".
ReplyDeleteThis definition seems to complicate what a "text" is even further, with its emphasis on intentionality. One problem I see is that we as consumers of texts may confuse what we bring to it--our interpretation and reaction--as being the equal opposite of "intention", but that is not necessarily true. The idea that bored doodling tells us that someone was bored is a good one, but I think this case is a "thing", perhaps an "artifact", to which we can bring our own interpretation, but behind which there is not likely any intention. Just because I can interpret a cloud as looking like a giraffe doesn't mean anyone intended it.
-Jake Gibbons
Yes, I think the intention to communicate is the key ingredient to a text. But there is a fine line between the intention to communicate and the intention to create (as in the case of the doodler or frustrated scribbler), if there is any line at all. Because isn't the act of creation intended to communicate something, even if just to the creator him/herself? Interpretation aside, I'm not sure where I stand on the distinction between communication and creation.
ReplyDeleteTo me, intentionality defines what is or is not text. Without intentionality, there is no message to convey— if the creator intended the work to have a purpose, then it should mean something. It is then up to the beholder to interpret that meaning, and find what was meant to be communicated from the text. You can’t exactly say that an elephant had an intention behind the painting it created— and therefore can’t be a text, at least in terms of human communication. With regard to the argument of the carpet, I completely agree with j-thought when he/she claims that it is in fact, a text. It may not be a traditional text in the sense of literal words being communicated, but it definitely was intended to convey a meaning when you walk into a room. Think about all the different types of flooring you could install in a room. Each of them, whether wood floor, carpet, tile, colored, bland, all change the way a room is perceived, or “read” by the person who enters it. In that way i think furnishings are definitely a text because they are intended to create certain messages (calm, clean, masculine, feminine, modern, traditional) and so, to me at least, are text.
ReplyDeleteI also believe its hard to say whether intentionality or perception plays a bigger role in determining what is text. Intentionality is made by the creator, but what if our perception of their work registers no importance in it? What if I look at an etching in an ancient stone and it means absolutely nothing to me— is it then not a text? I’m wondering here who has the authority to determine what is a text, the creator or the beholder. I guess it depends on how many people are impacted by the intended text in question.
Personally, I feel that one would be hard pressed to find any sort of object that we might consider a text, whether it is a painting, poem, sculpture or what have you, that wasn't created with some sort of intended meaning or purpose from the individual artist. As was mentioned above in an earlier comment, even the doodles or scratches in the sand, though it's often difficult from an outside perspective to look back and grasp at some sort of "meaning," were created from a specific moment in time where some sort of emotion or situation, perhaps even boredom, fueled their creation. Saying these doodles have no meaning, purely because we have no way of going back and pinpointing exactly what that meaning was, is the equivalent of saying that a book written in a language incomprehensible to us, has no meaning. To understand such things as being a text certainly requires a little broadening of the mind, but by only considering items which are clearly and obviously understandable to be true texts results in many texts being disregarded as "just" scribbles, doodles etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree with McGann a text is given value when it is embedded with meaning, without this meaning a text can be as insignificant as a scribble on the wall. However an interesting phenomenom is when a text is created but it is misinterpreted due to a lack of communication. This miscommunication might in fact create a whole new alternate meaning to the text. Although this misinterpretation might be detrimental to the original creator of the text, it might create a more appealing meaning which may become accepted by the general public.
ReplyDeletethis image was on my tumblr dashboard today. how coincidental
ReplyDeletehttp://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lruequplO41qfvkydo1_500.jpg
I totally agree with StephenMc. Text is the intention to communicate and record. When I doodle in class, I am drawing something that is on my mind, thus creating a text because I am communicating what is on my mind, on that moment. I would like to compare it to an impromptu text. I do not doodle in my HOTT class. I would like to make that point clear :)
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